With only a week of practice, the Lamar High School Savages softball team opens the 2016 season with a home game against the St. Mary’s Pirates at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 20 at Citizen’s Field.

Lamar head coach Mindy McCoy, who enters her sixth season at the helm, has 23 players out for the team this season. Those numbers are down compared to 30 players out for the team last year.

The Savages suffered some heavy losses due to the graduation of seven seniors from a year ago.

That means McCoy will have lot of new faces at a number of starting positions.

“We will be a fairly young team with only three seniors on the roster,” said McCoy. “However, our young players have played a lot of softball. It’s not like we have to do a lot of rebuilding with fundamentals.”

The roster will be dotted with three seniors, eight juniors, 10 sophomores, and two freshmen.

“We certainly have some quality athletes from our seniors down to our freshmen,” McCoy said. “I’m really excited to see what these girls will bring.”